Inside Frost/Nixon - Interview with Actor Andy Milder
Ron Howard's Oscar Nominated Film on DVD April 21
Apr 16, 2009
Nixon was already a destroyed man when he agreed to be interviewed by English game show host David Frost. Nixon was buoyed by an outsize ego and selective memory of the events that brought about his downfall – the Watergate cover-up.
Frost and Nixon came to the interview set with opposing agendas, Nixon to repair his shattered image and Frost to smash it further. Frost would thereby resurrect his own failing television career. It was an historic match of the titans, each with something to prove.
Andy Milder plays Nixon aide and real life essayist, humorist and political observer Frank Gannon. Gannon was there watching Nixon squirm and rage under Frost’s unforgiving battering. I spoke with Milder from his home in California about the importance and spirit of the film.
AB - After all these years, why do you suppose the Frost Nixon exchanges still matter?
AM - It is a seminal point in American history. President Nixon will have left his mark on this country for a long time. Also he was misunderstood, I'm not say he is forgiven but it is also saying what he did was in the context of the time. It’s still fascinating.
AB - Who is the worst US president – Nixon or Bush?
AM - We used to joke on the set that it was the perfect time, compared with Bush, Nixon is an amateur. Both stories are tragic. The Nixon story is tragic. He was president and worked his whole life to be president and he had to leave in disgrace because of his own hubris.
AB - Frank Gannon is a living person who has made a career of writing about his time working with and deconstructing Nixon. Did that give you pause?
AM - It did concern me. I met with him several times and it made it much easier for me to play him on film. A wonderful guy, very smart very funny, not what someone growing up in the 70's and 80's would expect a Nixon croney to be like. He's completely charming and frankly has an opinion that I don’t always agree with. He is very pointed and smart and interesting. It's hard to tell because I only met him a few times. I will say that others who were back there then say he is the same guy. People definitely change - I'm not the same person I was twenty years ago, but I can't escape myself. I met Gannon and said I would be playing him and he said “Couldn’t they get Brad Pitt?”
AB - Strange to say, but the film feels like a thriller - the hunt, the capture, the attack, the wounded animal retaliates.
AM - It’s a funny thing. My wife asked me what I thought of the movie. I said it was all going to be in Ron Howard's hands because the script was wonderful, but it was just words. We could be bored to tears or engaged. We read the script but watching the film, we were on the edge of our seats. Ron creates such wonderful tension, he creates a great and real world and it is suspenseful. We were on the edge of our seats.
AB - Michael Sheen and Frank Langella are superb. Did they communicate much off screen?
AM - No. Actually (director) Ron Howard went out of his way to separate both groups (Nixon’s aides and the TV crew) to help create tension between them. It works. It’s different for Frank and Michael because they did the play together and they had their communicating done. But our camps were purposefully kept away from each other.
I can’t imagine how exhausting it must have been for Frank Langella to play Nixon. For me, Frank Gannon who was light hearted, smart and shrewd and was much easier than Nixon. I didn’t envy Frank that task.
I will just note for the record that while Ron is one of the great men of Hollywood so really is Kevin Bacon (a Nixon military aide). He’s just that guy you would hope he’d be, down to earth, a guy’s guy. He likes what he does and he’s had a good, steady career.
AB - What’s your method – do you learn the lines and your marks or do you delve into great psychological detail?
AM - I really can’t say that I have one. Know lines and learn your marks but for me all I can try to do and I hope to do, is to make it honest and truthful. I don’t want to sound pretentious or Hollywood-y, but I try to go in and make truth.
AB - You are an extremely busy actor with an impressive filmography. What accounts for your success?
AM - I couldn’t even wager a guess. I question it a lot, all the time. I knock on work. I had a nice three year period I couldn’t get arrested after doing some pretty good stuff. It’s a fickle town and you hop along from one thing to another and no rhyme or reason to it. I’ve been very lucky. If I said it was all skill, I’d be lying. I know tons of skilled actors who don’t make a living, so I count my blessings.
AB - Starting out did you think you’d be a success?
AM - It’s embarrassing to admit but I will. I never doubted that. Maybe that’s why I am successful; I refused to accept anything but success. Now having said that, I came to Hollywood with a five year plan, to find some other job if acting didn't work. But I had that break and my ego and my illogical side said keep going.
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